Sunday, April 7, 2013

Spring Snow and the Square Format

Finally Spring weather has arrived in time for the second week of April. I captured this image in late March, on the first day of Spring as I recall.

This old shed is on our farm. I have been looking at it for 40 years, thinking there must be a picture there somewhere. Finally during the last snow of the season it came together for me. I just could not organize the scene to my liking in a rectangular format.

Shooting this in the square format everything fell into place. I like square- it seems easier for me to compose in than rectangular often times. Part of my struggle with the rectangular format seems to have something to do with the fact that I am left handed. It tends to make me see things from right to left. That goes against the accepted grain. English is written and read from left to right. Most books on composition indicate visual flow is also left to right, as a general rule. So when I compose an image I have this subconscious tension between how I want to see it and how it is "supposed to be". But in the square format, that issue seems to go away for me.

There was one other factor about this image I have to credit John Barclay for; The idea of showing only half a barn. Our paradigms are crazy things sometimes. Until I saw John compose beautiful landscapes showing only a part of a barn it never occurred to me to see it that way.